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5 Hidden Features on Facebook

Jul 18, 2018 1:15:00 AM

Facebook has dozens of neat little features. Here are five worth knowing right now.

Save Stuff For Later

We tell people we have Facebook to keep up with events, stay in touch with distant friends, and peek at baby pictures. But if we’re honest, we also use it to waste time every now and again. Silly pictures, interesting videos, insightful articles about smart technology choices (ahem)—there’s plenty of cool stuff floating around Facebook that’s perfect for killing time.

But maybe you can’t afford to waste time right this minute but would like to take a look at something later. Or maybe you’d like to keep track of the best stuff you find. Well, you can, by saving posts.

When you come across a post you’d like to save, click the ellipsis (the three parallel dots) menu at the top right. The Save Post (or Link, or Video) option will be the first on the pull down menu. That puts the post in your Saved Folder.

To get to your Saved Folder, you first must save something. Once you’ve done that, it will appear in the menu on the left of your home screen under Explore. Look for a red ribbon icon. Note: if the original poster deletes the post, it will no longer appear in your saved folder.

Turn Off Video Auto-Play

Are you annoyed by auto-play videos? Go to Settings. Then, go to Videos at the bottom of the column on the left. Here, you can turn Auto-Play Videos to Off.

Access Your Other Inbox

You actually have two inboxes in Facebook Messenger. There’s the one you regularly use, and then there’s Message Requests. It’s where Facebook puts all the messages from people you’re not friends with. If you have a long-lost friend trying to reach you, if you post something to a buy-and-sell page, or if someone random is trying to talk to you, their message will end up here.

To reach Message Requests, click the Messages icon at the top right of the screen. It’s the speech bubble with the lighting icon in it. This will open up your regular inbox, Recent. To the right of the word Recent, you’ll see Message Requests. Click it. You might see a link that says See Filtered Requests. If so, click that. Now you’re in your other inbox.

Send Files Over Facebook

If you need to send an attachment to someone, you don’t need to get their email address. You can send stuff over Facebook Messenger. When you have a Messenger window open, look for a paper clip icon at the bottom. It’s next to the emoticon button and reads Send Files if you hover over it. Click it and you can upload files which will be sent to the friend you’re messaging. If you’re in Messenger, shared files will appear on the right of your screen, along with shared photos.

Log Out of Facebook Remotely

Maybe you’ve accidentally left Facebook logged in on a public computer. Maybe it’s on your phone, which you’ve lost. Fortunately, you can see which devices are logged in and log out of Facebook remotely.

Go to Settings. Under Security and Login, there’s a box titled Where You’re Logged In. It lists what devices are logged into your Facebook account and where those devices are. If you’d like to log some of those devices out, look to the right. There are icons that look like three vertical circles. Click them, and you can log out remotely.